About

89plus is a long-term, international, multi-platform research project co-founded by Simon Castets and Hans Ulrich Obrist, investigating the generation of innovators born in or after 1989. Without forecasting artistic trends or predicting future creation, 89plus manifests itself through panels, books, periodicals, exhibitions and residencies, bringing together individuals from a generation whose voices are only starting to be heard, yet which accounts for more than half of the world’s population.

Marked by several paradigm-shifting events, the year 1989 saw the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the start of the post- Cold War period, and the introduction of the World Wide Web and the beginning of the universal availability of the Internet. Positing a relationship between these world-changing events and creative production at large, 89plus introduces the work of some of this generation’s most inspiring protagonists.

Since an introductory panel held in January 2013 at the DLD – Digital, Life, Design conference in Munich, 89plus has conducted research internationally, in Hong Kong and Miami with Art Basel’s Salon series, in Singapore as part of Singapore International Festival of the Arts, in Cape Town with Design Indaba, in Madrid with ARCOmadrid, in New York and Rio de Janeiro as part of the MoMA PS1 exhibition ‘Expo 1’, and in Dubai with Art Dubai, which culminated in the project ‘Vessel Verse’ by Sarah Abu Abdallah and Abdullah Al Mutairi at Art Dubai 2016.

89plus has developed a series of residencies with various partners internationally including the Park Avenue Armory in New York, the agnès b. / Tara Oceans Polar Circle Expedition, and the Google Cultural Institute in Paris, which culminated in a one night exhibition at Fondation Cartier, Paris. Also in Paris, 89plus presented a video screening on the Filter Bubble as part of Prospectif Cinéma program at Centre Pompidou. 89plus also collaborated with Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (MAM), organising series of solo and duo shows as interventions in MAM’s exhibition, ‘Co-workers’.

In late 2013, 89plus partnered with Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and the Serpentine Galleries for a new annual award for emerging talent, the ‘Re Rebaudengo Serpentine Grants’. The 89plus Marathon was held at London’s Serpentine Sackler Gallery in late 2013, followed shortly after by the 89plus Americas Marathon: Autoconstrucción at Museo Jumex, Mexico City.

In early 2014 The LUMA Foundation hosted the inaugural exhibition, ‘89plus / Poetry will be made by all!’, in Zürich, driven by a residency series and an ongoing project which is publishing 1000 books by 1000 poets. A second iteration of ‘Poetry will be made by all!’ was presented as part of the exhibition, ‘After Babel’ at Moderna Museet in Stockholm throughout summer 2015. 89plus continued its collaboration with The LUMA Foundation in 2015-16 with the group exhibition, ‘Filter Bubble’, which included over 40 international artists, and again in 2017 with the group exhibition, ‘Americans 2017’.

In August 2015 89plus undertook a research trip to Ghana, South Africa and Ethiopia, in partnership with the Google Cultural Institute and Another Africa, to meet and conduct workshops with 89plus practitioners at Nubuke Foundation, Accra; Keleketla! Library, Johannesburg; and Addis Ababa University. In August and September 2016, selected workshop participants from each city worked with these local partners to develop project proposals for the Google Cultural Institute Residency in Paris in late 2016. There are more details about this project on the Google Arts & Culture website.

2016 projects included ‘Bunny Rogers: Wrjnger’, a solo exhibition at Foundation de 11 Lijnen, Oudenburg, and ‘Qidian’, a group exhibition at Zendai Zhujiajiao Art Museum as part of the Shanghai Project.

89plus is grateful for the support of The LUMA Foundation
89plus.com is kindly supported by DLD – Digital, Life, Design